My Oma, my dad's mom, passed away yesterday in her sleep, after a few years of strokes and dementia. She was my favorite relative. I last saw her in 2002 when Dh and I visited Calgary on our honeymoon.
Oma has always been very special to me. I look exactly like her, and have her personality. She once told me that I would always be her favorite grandchild because we were kindred spirits. If my son was a girl he would have had her name.
I have a great deal of guilt now, because last winter before her dementia took over she wrote to me and asked me to come to Canada and bring my son so she could hold him and kiss him. She has never asked anyone for anything, and my grandpa had been saying she didnt remember that she had any great-grandkids. But she asked to see Noah. I put it off, because i could not afford a plane ticket and my car wouldn't survive a 2400 mile round trip. She kept asking, and i kept saying we were coming 'soon', but 'soon' never came. I let her down. She died before i could get my act together. she never got to hold and kiss my son, whom she said is the spitting image of my dad as a child.
I will now have to live with that regret forever.
I am madly packing to leave tomorrow morning to make that drive up to Calgary for her funeral - 1200 miles alone with my little boy. Had to rent a car and everything. I have not even had a second to mourn her since I got the call.
I love you, Oma
Jeanette Annamaria VonBraght DeBruyn - 1923 - 2005
Lisa
Oma has always been very special to me. I look exactly like her, and have her personality. She once told me that I would always be her favorite grandchild because we were kindred spirits. If my son was a girl he would have had her name.
I have a great deal of guilt now, because last winter before her dementia took over she wrote to me and asked me to come to Canada and bring my son so she could hold him and kiss him. She has never asked anyone for anything, and my grandpa had been saying she didnt remember that she had any great-grandkids. But she asked to see Noah. I put it off, because i could not afford a plane ticket and my car wouldn't survive a 2400 mile round trip. She kept asking, and i kept saying we were coming 'soon', but 'soon' never came. I let her down. She died before i could get my act together. she never got to hold and kiss my son, whom she said is the spitting image of my dad as a child.
I will now have to live with that regret forever.
I am madly packing to leave tomorrow morning to make that drive up to Calgary for her funeral - 1200 miles alone with my little boy. Had to rent a car and everything. I have not even had a second to mourn her since I got the call.
I love you, Oma
Jeanette Annamaria VonBraght DeBruyn - 1923 - 2005
Lisa
